


Loss

by Apricus



Series: Turning Points [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Laurent Knows, Laurent POV, M/M, Prince's Gambit Chapter 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apricus/pseuds/Apricus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurent loses the thing that was most important to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Since all I do these days is think about Laurent and what Laurent is thinking, I wrote some of it down. This one stemmed from Laurent being gone too long with the horses while Damen starts the fire. It's what my silly brain imagines him doing.

What do people think about in that moment right before death? For him the answer was very little. There was no time to think, only to observe the odd sequence of events. No time to move, except a quick roll from below the fall of the horse. He didn't realize what was happening, how he had come to be resting in the river. Damen apparently did comprehend what was happening.

He looked up to see Damen astride his horse, several lengths back. He saw a strange, perplexed expression quickly slide into dangerous, focused calm. The muscles in Damen's arm flexed, his elbow thrown forward as the sword flipped over in his hand and was thrust into the air above his head with a speed that seemed impossible, especially given the heft of the weapon. Maybe it was simply that Laurent's perspective, below, in the river, made it all seem loftier. Maybe it was that Laurent's perception of time had slowed. Or maybe Damen was truly that good.

The sword was released and Laurent's eyes followed it to its target. The man became momentarily airborne as the blade impacted his torso with ferocious force. He hardly even struggled. A quick, clean death.

The world was blurring around him. Laurent's dazed eyes drifted back to Damen, already off his horse and coming toward him. He was distantly aware of Damen's mouth moving.

_He is speaking to me._

"No. No, you got to him...before..."

Damen was kneeling in the river before him, eyes downcast over Laurent's body. Peculiarly, Damen seemed to be touching him. He felt the brush of hands over his neck, shoulders, down his chest.

_He is handling me._

Laurent permitted his eyes to fall closed for a moment. When he opened them, time began to return to its normal clip and the dullness in his brain began to lift. Laurent recovered enough to recognize that it was advisable that he remove himself from the river, and from Damen's hands. He made a move to grip the cold rocks and hoist himself out of his compromising position. Damen intervened, effortlessly lifting him.

The horse was quickly assessed and deemed unrideable. The body of the soldier was moved and hidden, Damen quiet and somber once it was done. And within minutes, Laurent found himself uncomfortably on the back of Damen's horse.

The ride was a nightmare. For hours they kept mostly silent. Laurent weathered it by applying his mental focus to the plan he was orchestrating, winding his brain around forts and troop numbers and assessments of personalities and motives. But sometimes the horse would lurch to avoid a rock and Damen's stomach muscles would become firm under Laurent's hands, his thighs would clench around the body of the horse.

_Stop moving!_

Every traitorous instinct was propelling Laurent to push their bodies more closely together and to grip Damen more tightly. He suppressed the urge and kept his touch light, just enough to prevent him falling off the horse.

Damianos was nothing like he'd imagined. Well, that wasn't entirely true. In some ways, Damen was exactly as he'd imagined. Damen was a formidable warrior. More than that. He was the best Laurent had ever seen. No one could beat him in straightforward battle. Upon confronting this particularly unfortunate circumstance, Laurent had been forced to reluctantly abandon his fantasy of pushing a sword through Damen's chest. After the initial disappointment, he'd reminded himself that there were many ways to kill a man.

But there were other failures of his original estimation, and Laurent had been grossly unprepared to face the whole person. Damen possessed a gentleness antithetical to his physical size, like an enormous warhorse with the heart of a child's pony. And while he was a little dense, Laurent had to admit that he wasn't a mindless brute. He sometimes surprised Laurent with a clarity of thought that, while dismally naive at times, was also refreshing in its directness.

And then there was the most critical difference between the abstract and the actual. Damen was honorable to a fault. He had never broken Laurent's faith. He had never left him, even when presented with the chance. He had never lied; _withheld_ perhaps, but he'd not lied. And most strangely, he had never hesitated to protect Laurent from bodily harm, even, it seemed, at the expense of his own countrymen.

He sometimes felt at ease as he hadn't since Auguste was alive. Laurent's hands shifted against warm riding leathers and he closed his eyes.

_No! Stop!_

He throttled the buoyant feeling in his stomach, reminding himself of who this man was, of what he had taken from him. Not without struggle, Laurent extricated his brain from this line of thought and back to troop movements.

By the time Damen had finally determined a suitable campsite, Laurent was nearing the edge, his composure brittle. His brain was mired and he needed to escape. He dismounted. He led the horses to the edge of the trees. He tied them with steady hands. He walked several more steps into the trees, and then crumpled to his knees in the grass.

The hot, angry tears were on him before he'd even become aware of their origin. His chest felt hollowed out. His hands fisted around the tall grass. He felt too warm, despite his wet clothing and the cool approach of dusk.

_I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!_

Near delirious apologies untwisted like string pulled from a tightly wound spool. They pooled, ugly and loud and perverse in his mind. The loss of it had been lurking at the back of his mind for weeks, but today had all come into shattering focus. The desire for revenge had so long been a part of him that he felt like a loosed flag without it, flittering to the ground without purpose.

_I can't. I'm so sorry. I can't do it! This was the only thing that mattered, but I've failed even in this._

He felt disgusted by himself. His teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut with the effort to stem the tears. What was this? He would not be turned into some sniveling, sensitive fool. Laurent pressed his fingernails into his scalp until a different type of pain burst into his brain, displacing the pathetic self-loathing. Laurent forced his bleary eyes open, willed his mind clear.

The grass was waving gently in front of him, its serenity a contradiction to his emotional state. He disciplined his feelings.

_What now?_

Impaired sensibility like this was illogical and counterproductive. Laurent also knew that it couldn't go on for much longer or Damen would come looking for him. And what excuse would he have for this weakness? That he was frightened by his near-death incident? Preposterous. Damen would likely believe it, but he couldn't bring himself to say such a laughable thing.

Laurent wiped a shirt sleeve over his face and concentrated on lengthening his splintered breathing. He couldn't return to camp looking as though he'd been crying. Once he was satisfied that he probably only looked like he'd recently fallen off a horse and into a river, Laurent stood and walked toward the orange glow of the fire, back toward the man he knew he could no longer slay in the name of Auguste.


End file.
